#environment!

I sure don't, or didn't. But today I had to stand at the copier and print out 1000+ letters, which required refilling the paper multiple times. And so I was looking at the stacks of 500 pages of copy paper and realizing: this everyday product is a miracle. 500 sheets of paper, incredibly thin, perfectly smooth and white, perfectly cut edges in uniform size, so we can print out thousands of pages a day. For so long paper was expensive and hard to create. Now we have an almost infinite amount, and it's invisible.

And then I started thinking about mail and the labor that goes into printing and shipping all the letters that go into daily life. Bills. Receipts. Government forms (because the letters I was printing are a federally mandated requirement.) The grease of bureaucracy.

And I was also thinking about sustainability, and waste, and whether we're using more paper now with all these forms, or less because a lot of records ARE online now.

‘Like a giant bird box’: the volunteers building huge snowdrifts for Finland’s pregnant seals

Officially, we have four seasons (one hot, one cold, and two transitional) and they are determined by planetary position around the sun. Your mam is right on this! We use solstices and equinoxes to gauge their start points. They're also deemed to be equal in length.

But: isn't it interesting that you feel autumn has already started? Have a quick thought exercise: what, specifically, makes you feel like it's already begun?

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Done?

So! There's a few things it could be, but my guess is that you're picking up on two big things from the natural world - the weather has turned (cooler and WET), and the start of the annual green down (leaves are changing colour). The former is meteorological, which is a valid basis for a seasonal system. It's part of the Aboriginal ones I mentioned before, in fact - more accurately theirs are based on hydrology, but weather is a contributor to that, of course.

But in the UK, it's a bit more of a byproduct. 2025 saw the driest and warmest spring we've had in a long, long time. But, we still knew it was spring. And this is because of the second half of the above reasons: ecology.

If you look at ecological trends throughout the year, we have six seasons in this country, each lasting roughly two months but really waxing and waning in length from year to year. They are:

Early Spring: the point in the year when the very first buds and shoots appear. By classic reckoning this is still the depths of winter, like Jan/Feb kind of time; but bluebells send up leaves, early starters like snowdrops and crocuses flower, tiny buds form on trees, and the blackthorn blossoms. Towards the end, frog and toad spawn is laid.

Late Spring: the bit we classically think of as spring. Early bees and butterflies start, the bluebells flower, the catkins ripen on the trees, the early birds return. Flowers are predominantly yellow or white (except bluebells). Animals fuck. Have babies, too. Lambs and chicks and fawns. Early trees get leaves as green up gets underway, but the canopy doesn't close over yet. Tadpoles hatch. It ends when the hawthorn flowers.

Mid/High Summer: my personal favourite. Starts when the hawthorn flowers. The tree canopy closes over as green up finishes, and that ends the reign of the spring bulbs. Now, everything starts flowering, and in a rainbow of colours; this is where we add pinks and purples and reds and oranges. Pollinators, bats and birds are all back in full swing, as is the breeding. Froglets and toadlets emerge. There's bioluminescence in the sea. Everything is green and colourful and vibrant.

Late Summer: the tree flowers calm down or stop as they begin working on fruit production. Unripe fruit appears, in fact, though early species will ripen by the end (blackberry on the brambles, for example). Grasses often turn gold to conserve water in the heat. Plenty of animals about, but the babies are often almost fledged. Wasps become ornery as they get kicked out of the hive. The bioluminescence in the sea continues. Some birds start migrating.

Autumn: green down happens, and the leaves turn fun colours. Fruit ripens, so nuts and berries abound. Migratory birds head away. The last hibernators cling on, but slowly you stop seeing bats and bees and butterflies. Sometimes you see butterflies on the floor, and they'll climb on your finger for warmth before flying off to find a nice shed to hibernate in.

Winter: the bit where everything sleeps. Leaf drop finishes, leaving bare trees. Many birds remain, but they often appear fat and round as they puff up for warmth. The hibernators are gone. In fact, the spring bulbs are gearing up underground, waiting for the days to lengthen before they race for the light, and that starts the cycle again.

As a land manager, when I still did that, this was the system I followed because it was simply more practical and more relevant. To me, there's just a gulf of difference between early and late spring, and I can't see them as the same season at all.

These jeans are two months old. I got them from M&S for about £47, thinking they'd last longer. I've not worn them every day - enough that I think they've been through the wash twice? Maybe three times? We wash at 40, don't have a dryer.

And the fabric quality is so poor they've literally worn through. Less than two months is all that took.

I think it can be summed up by

"Alas, oh no, we are dying as we can find no devil's bit scabious for our caterpillars"

"Don't worry, butterflies! Through enormous time and effort and money we have restored several acres of scabious-rich marshy grassland one mile east of you! You need but fly there."

"Alas, oh no, there is nowhere"

"Yes there is one mile east"

"We are dying"

"FLY EAST"

Related fun fact! English doesn't have a specific word for the habitat-type in question, which is why we use the official term "marshy grassland". It's actually weird because it's so important it's classed as an endangered Section 7 priority habitat, and yet; the English language doesn't have a precise word